In response to the growing awareness of environmental conservation, we are seeing active development of power generation technologies that utilize hydraulic power, wind power, sunlight and other natural sources of energy as petroleum alternative energies in recent years. Among others, hydroelectric power generation is superior in that it can provide stable power with high efficiency.
Hydroelectric power generation methods include the impulse type and reaction type.
The Pelton type and Turgo impulse type, among others, are known types of impulse-type hydroelectric power generation, where, in both cases, water is caused to hit the blade of a runner to turn the runner to generate power.
Known types of reaction-type hydroelectric power generation include the Francis type and propeller type, where, in both case, the difference between the water pressures before and after the runner is utilized to turn the runner to generate power.
For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a Francis-type power generation system that turns the runner with water pressure and transmits the resulting rotational power to the generator via the rotational shaft to generate power.